Unspoken: A story of secrets, love and revenge by T. Belshaw (best reads of all time .TXT) 📗

Frank and Benny dug out the earth on the piece of ground I’d earmarked for the extension to the piggery. Frank, who had worked with builders before, measured out the plot and even worked out how much concrete and hardcore we’d need for the base. Mathematics wasn’t Benny’s thing and he began to show a little more in the way of respect for Frank, who had done a bit of college after work when he was a teenager.

The two of them were getting on quite well, which is why I chose to partner them. Benny was an easy-going sort of person and Frank had a similar disposition. He was good in a crowd as long as it was male (he was more awkward with a group of women). He came up with some genuinely funny jokes and could keep a conversation going with anecdotes from his working past.

It wasn’t the same with all the men. Barney had to sort out a few quibbles and complaints from a couple of the farm hands who still harboured suspicions about Frank. In general, though, he slotted into the system well. He was hard working, respectful, especially of Barney, and he was the first to volunteer for any job that needed doing urgently. Even clearing the blocked drains in the pig pens or, on occasion, the drains of our outdoor toilet.

All the bickering about him stopped when he became the hero of the day, after a wagon, pulled by Bessie, our shire horse, tipped over, trapping Alfie Brown’s legs underneath. Frank was working in the next field but heard the shouts and rushed across to help.

The two Georges, Foulkes and Foulds, stood around, uselessly flapping their arms and arguing with each other over what to do.

The trailer was full of thick planks and sturdy railway sleepers that were to be used to ford the perpetual quagmire that made up the eastern side of the bottom acre, and to build a reliable, all year round, platform to enable access to the farm lane.

Frank assessed the situation in seconds and selected two sleepers and one of the shorter planks that had fallen out of the trailer during the accident.

He snapped orders at the almost shell-shocked men, telling them to stack the sleepers about three feet away from the toppled wagon. He picked up the chosen length of timber himself, slid one end under the trailer next to Alfie’s shoulder and using it as a fulcrum, ordered the two men to bear down on the raised end.

In what must have seemed like a miracle of engineering to the two Georges, the trailer was eased up by about a foot, and Frank dragged a grateful Alfie to safety.

Alfie was off work for eight weeks in total. The doctor at the hospital informed him that he had been lucky. Had he stayed under the trailer for too much longer, the blood supply would have been cut off and he may have lost a leg. There was no such thing as sick pay back then, but I paid Alfie’s wages anyway. I paid for the doctor who looked after him when he left hospital too. He was my responsibility after all.

Frank was toasted time and again at The Old Bull on the following Friday evening, and again, when Alfie was well enough to attend himself. After that, there was no backbiting or complaints about him. He was one of them.

After work, Frank would strip to the waist and have a flannel wash at the kitchen sink. He was a well-built man with a thick, but solid, waist and a broad chest. I must admit there were times when I made an excuse to be in the kitchen while he was washing. I would even carry some item or other in there with me and pretend to be looking for it.

Frank didn’t pester me, or hint at any carnal relationship at that time. Mind you, I was five months’ pregnant and the bump was getting bigger by the day. I doubt I was the most alluring woman in the town. Miriam was in far better shape, and she was a good twenty-five years older than me.

I’ll even admit that I felt a little jealous when I overheard him talking to his workmates about some woman or other he had been chatting up in the town.

‘Tits like melons, I’m not kidding.’

I could sympathise with that woman. Mine were beginning to look like melons by then.

After dinner, on weekday evenings, Frank and I would listen to the radio or we would sit opposite each other by the boiler and read. He would always have a thriller by the likes of Graham Greene or Raymond Chandler. I’d be reading library copies of Agatha Christie’s crime novels. One night, Frank complained that he’d finished his stack of books and had nothing left to read. I offered to let him borrow my, as yet, unread copy of Agatha’s, Death on the Nile, but he refused on the basis that it had been written by a woman and he didn’t like romantic fiction. He was steadfast in his refusal, even after I read him a few paragraphs and explained that she was one of the best-selling crime writers of the day and didn’t actually do romance.

On Monday evenings we always listened to Monday Night at Seven, where we could pitch our wits against Inspector Hornleigh of the Yard who would spend fifteen minutes interrogating witnesses to a crime. The audience was encouraged to try to pick out the mistakes made by the suspects and guess who the perpetrator of the crime was. Frank and I had quite a few arguments during the program. To his horror, I was correct on far more occasions than he was. I explained that was because Agatha Christie was a better writer then Graham Greene and he should really read her books instead. He said I was just lucky.

One night, in late February, I was feeling a bit down and more than